TCOM 17M RAID Aerostat
(click to view full)

The RAID program is a combination of cameras and surveillance equipment positioned on high towers and aerostats. Aerostats differ from blimps in that blimps are powered, while aerostats are anchored to the ground via a cranked tether that also supplies electrical power. Because the aerostats are not highly pressurized, bullets won’t burst them and they can actually remain buoyant for hours after suffering multiple punctures.

The RAID concept used a smaller TCOM 17M instead of the TCOM 71M JLENS aerostats used for cruise missile and air defense, and has sensors optimized for battlefield surveillance rather than powerful air defense radars. The result is a form of survivable and permanent surveillance over key areas that has been deployed to Afghanistan & Iraq. It can also be deployed as a tower system, and this “Eagle Eye/ GBOSS” deployment is turning out to be the preferred mode.

Raytheon recently received a contract from the US Marine Corps for more systems, which has now been followed by a pair of additional US Army orders. Other recent news includes a program support contract…

Continue Reading… »

Telford’s airship

Telford Aviation Inc. in Bangor, ME received a $26.4 million5 time and materials contract for “9 months of continued multi-sensor airborne reconnaissance surveillance system support.” Telford’s own site states that their available government services include system maintenance and system training on special mission equipment for ISR programs, as well as all operational support for a 30,000 cubic foot surveillance airship.

Work will be performed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is expected to be complete by Jan 31/09. One bid was solicited on March 11/08 by the CECOM Acquisition Center at Fort Monmouth, NJ (W15P7T-07-C-W009).

JLENS Concept
(click to view full)

The proliferation of cruise missiles and associated components, combined with a falling technology curve for biological, chemical, or even nuclear agents, is creating longer-term hazards on a whole new scale. Intelligence agencies and analysts believe the threat of U.S. cities coming under cruise missile attack from ships off the coast is real, sophisticated and evolving. Meanwhile, the July-August 2005 issue of Air Defense Artillery Magazine discusses experiences in Operation Iraqi Freedom which showed that even conventional cruise missiles could have important tactical uses in the hands of a determined enemy.

Aerial sensors are preferred against low-flying cruise missiles, because they lack the range/horizon limitations of ground-based systems. The bad news is that keeping planes in the air all the time is very expensive, and the aircraft themselves aren’t cheap. The primary challenge for theater and national cruise missile defense, therefore, is the development of a reliable, affordable, long-flying look-down platform to detect, track and identify incoming missiles and support over-the-horizon engagements in a timely manner. Hence JLENS.

This is DID’s FOCUS Article covering the JLENS system, from key capabilities to program structure to ongoing procurements. Per DID practice, new materials will be highlighted in green type. The most recent news is a successful review milestone…

• The JLENS System: This is Not Your Grandpa’s Barrage Balloon
• JLENS: The Program
• JLENS: Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources

Militaries around the world are moving to modernize and transform themselves to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Our mission is to deliver a regular cross-section of relevant, on-target stories, news, and analysis that will help experts and interested laypeople alike stay up to speed on key military developments and issues. Stories are broken down by military category and presented as fast bullet points that orient you quickly, with accompanying links if you wish to pursue more in-depth treatments.

Some of This Month’s Targets of Opportunity Include: Aging aircraft; F-22; F-35; India’s big fighter contest; 2018 bomber; Next-gen gunships; Japan’s stealth aircraft; JCA – just confusing; Poseidon down under; Boeing’s invisibility man; Odd new satellite; unmanned fighters & swarms; Cell phones & Patriots; Huge IT contracts; DARPA’s Deep Green; Lots of MRAP; FCS spinouts; Fire Ball; Better body armor; Australia’s new fleet; Korea: us too!; Britain’s new carriers; US Navy’s new bills; Russia’s stealthy Stereguschiy; Remote firefighting; Coast Guard cutters; ADVENT of breakthrough jet engines; $1M wearable power prize; Sub-finding ‘shark’; UK’s Grand Challenge & flying saucers; Boeing’s new plane design; DARPA’s robot dog; New Russian nukes; Britain’s new maintenance concept works; Israel prepares; Counter-insurgency air needs; Export controls and their blowback; CSAR-X: rescue me!; And much, much more…

• Air & Space Sector
• C4SI Dimension
• Land Sector
• Maritime Sector
• R&D: Far Out Concepts
• Strategic Weapons & Missile Defense
• Supply & Support
• Policy & Doctrine

This briefing comes from a team that includes professional publications Defense Industry Daily and The Aviation Week Group, and covers events over the summer season. To contact us with story tips, email transformation, over @windsofchange dot net.

Continue Reading… »

Ripple effect
(click to view full)

“Sri Lanka: Fulcrums & Lions to Battle Tigers?” discussed the Tamil Tigers’ (LTTE) attacks on Sri Lankan military bases and oil facilities using an unusual weapon for guerrillas and terrorists: aircraft. The implications of those attacks are becoming regional in scope, which should probably be expected given that the LTTE was responsible for assassinating Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

In spite of an interview in which Air Chief Fali Homi Major called the situation an irritant to India rather than a threat, the Indian military’s reaction suggests that they are not taking the Tigers lightly. Part of their response includes a follow-on buy from Israel of very advanced surveillance radars mounted on tethered aerostat blimps…

Continue Reading… »

TCOM 32M aerostat
(click to view full)

In the aftermath of World War 2, blimps and airships found themselves gradually phased out of the US military. That didn’t really begin to change until the 21st century (see April 2005, “USN, DARPA See Blimps & HULAs Rising”). The heavy-lift WALRUS project may have been canceled without explanation; but aerostat programs like JLENS cruise missile defense and its smaller RAID local surveillance derivative, and airships like the HAA/ISIS program, remain. The US Navy is also experimenting with aerostats for communications relay, surveillance, and radar overwatch functions – and this has become a formal program.

What’s driving this interest? Four things. One is persistence, in an era where constant surveillance + rapid precision strike creates a formidable military asset. A second is cost, especially in an era of rising fuel prices. A recent US NAVSEA release offers figures that starkly illustrate the gap in surveillance cost per hour between an aerostat and planes or UAVs:

Continue Reading… »

General Electric Co. in Cincinnati, OH received a $12.5 million indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity with cost-plus-fixed fee contract. The USAF wants GE to demonstrate the resilience of an aircraft’s flight control, electric actuation, and power management and distribution subsystems against high power microwaves and nuclear electromagnetic pulses, with a focus on a near-term solution to make aircraft immune (or at least highly resistant) to electromagnetic environmental effects. At this time, $527,000 has been obligated.

Solicitations began June 2006, negotiations were complete November 2006, and work will be complete November 2011. The US Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH issued the contract (FA8650-07-D-2700 task order 0001).

Continue Reading… »

Technical innovation is present in all militaries, but America’s combination of do-it-yourself types, large defense budgets, and a gadget-happy national character makes it particularly fertile ground. Now add a global war and its challenges, plus a defense sector with a strong small business component made up of ex-military types. The overall innovation transmission belt may not be as tight or as effective as Israel’s or Singapore’s, but the scale of the US defense establishment more than compensates in terms of the sheer number produced.

Adoption, of course, is another matter. One way to improve it is to raise the profile of sucessful innovations through awards. Along those lines, the US Army recently recognized some special innovators by naming its “Top 10 inventions of 2005,” a list that should be of interest to many militaries around the world.

It includes…

Continue Reading… »

Lockheed HAA Concept
(click to view full)

DARPA’s ISIS program is developing a stratospheric airship with sensor antennas that will include a radar nearly as large as the airship. This would create a battlefield surveillance platform with extreme endurance, and equally extreme resolution for its air and battlefield scans via radar and other carried sensors. This project is associated with Lockheed’s High Altitude Airship program, which is intended to soar at over 65,000 feet for over a month at a time, and could also play a significant role in ballistic missile and cruise missile defense.

Raytheon describes the radar task alone as: “Imagine a radar antenna that spans the length of a football field, yet weighs less than the 22 players in action on it.” Although it would contain “millions of electronic components,” the thickness of the antenna as envisioned by Raytheon would be about one centimeter (0.4 inch).

ISIS/HAA concept
(click to view full)

Like all DARPA projects, ISIS is pushing the limits of technology. Critical technology areas requiring further development include low aerial-density advanced airship hull material, bonding systems that will keep the radar attached to a hull with different thermal properties in temperatures that can cycle between 100 degrees F to -110 degrees (40C to -80C), extremely low-power transmit-receive modules for the radars, and novel power systems for long-endurance stratospheric airship operation. Recent contracts illustrate some of those efforts:

Continue Reading… »

Akron Airdock, 1931
(click to view full)

DID recently covered Lockheed’s High Altitude Airship military blimp and the related ISIS project. HAA/ISIS could put incredibly powerful battlefield ground surveillance and aerial surveillance radars on unmanned solar-powered blimps, which would stay aloft at 65,000 feet for up to a month. DID also noted the importance of Akron’s huge (1,175×325 x 211 feet), historic Airdock as the project’s location.

NBC reports that a large explosion and fire occurred yesterday at the airdock (Thursday, May 18, 2006), with smoke and flames pouring out of the hangar and bringing between 15 and 20 Akron fire companies to the scene….

Continue Reading… »